


feels so familiar now to me, like i’ve heard this all before

by gryjoy



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s08e16 Wrath, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Underage, M/M, Past Character Death, make it a tag god damnit, negan loves carl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:14:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29891328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gryjoy/pseuds/gryjoy
Summary: “Just give me ten seconds, for Carl...” Negan can tell these words hurt Rick, they hurt him too.
Relationships: Carl Grimes/Negan
Kudos: 10





	feels so familiar now to me, like i’ve heard this all before

**Author's Note:**

> title from all the lonely nights in your life by american pleasure club & teen suicide 
> 
> look okay, im really tired and feel like shit so ive been reading a lot of regan, cegan, desus, and rickyl fanfics bc im in multishipping hell
> 
> carl can be read as any age, i wrote his age somewhat ambiguously

“Just give me ten seconds, for Carl...” Negan can tell these words hurt Rick, they hurt him too.

There's silence. Whether or not said silence is comfortable is not for him to say, the face of Carl swimming in his head along with the letter that had been read to him.

"Ten..."

"Nine..."

He wants to hear, for Carl's sake, but not from Rick.

"Carl said: it doesn't have to be- it doesn't have to be a fight anymore," Negan wants to hit him. He wants to hit this asshole so he will stop talking about Carl. 

A part of him doesn't want him to stop.

"He was wrong," was he? "eight..."

"No, no. He was right."

And Negan's bottled emotions about the young man he fell for overflowed, the one who shot all his men yet still stayed in Negan's bed and ate burnt pancakes, sliding around on socks that didn't match.

He couldn't help the tears as he thought about Carl smiling at him in pure mirth, no malice to be seen, for the first time, he thought about Carl's clumsy kisses from lack of experience, about the way he looked all sleepy in that master bed with his hair looking like halos over the missing eye that somehow makes him look softer and easy to love. 

Love.

Rick looks down and knows.

It wasn't in Negan's letter, Michonne would have said something.

Carl may never have said he loved Negan back, but he knows he did. From pretending that Negan's pancakes weren't burnt with too much flour to thinking about writing a letter to him even though he was dying.

Negan wishes he could have been there. For one last goodbye.

Rick licks his lips and meets his eyes.

Negan waits for the angry words, _'he was my son, how could you have a relationship with him, he was only a boy.'_

Even Rick in his mind still babies Carl when the young man is anything but. Negan has seen what he can do, has seen the potential Carl has. Had.

Negan can see it in Rick's eyes, the same ones Carl has - he's fucking _dead_ , Negan - just as bright and just as ready to face the world. Though Rick's are now full of hate, not just for all the friends Negan had murdered or the pain caused but now for loving his son. Being so deeply in love with his son.

And then Rick is moving, slicing Negan's throat without a word watching him drop to the wet grass below them.

Rick looks down at him.

Negan would never kneel for another man. He's knelt for Carl, pressing kisses to the scars on his body and over his soft skin, being gentle like he's breakable which he never was.

Negan's blood is warm on his fingers as he tries to hold the wound, "look what you did," he isn't sure it came out but the look on Rick's face indicates he said it, "Carl didn't know a damn thing."

It's a lie in and of itself, yet he still says it.

Carl was smarter than he is, way smarter.

For someone with the knowledge of fifth-grader, he was somehow always outsmarting Negan, in whatever sense that may be.

He lets out a choked sob, maybe he'll see Carl again, hopefully, he will.

In a flash, he hits the ground, the sky now in his sight, he wishes he knew about this place sooner. He could have brought Carl on a picnic.

He closes his eyes and lets the tears fall, holding onto his bleeding neck in whatever attempt to salvage his life.

Darkness consuming him, he prays to whatever God is out there that he'll see Carl again, even for a moment.

**Author's Note:**

> now i gotta write something not like this
> 
> [carrd ](https://gryjoy.carrd.co/#) || [tumblr ](https://maccreadysimp.tumblr.com/) || [insta ](https://www.instagram.com/spiity/)


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